The John F. Kennedy Eternal Flame is a presidential memorial at the grave site of United States president John F. Kennedy, in Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. This permanent site replaced a temporary grave and eternal flame used at the time of Kennedy's state funeral on November 25, 1963, three days after his assassination. The site was designed by architect John Carl Warnecke, a longtime friend of Kennedy.Brown, "John Carl Warnecke Dies at 91, Designed Kennedy Gravesite," Washington Post, April 23, 2010.Grimes, "John Carl Warnecke, Architect to Kennedy, Dies at 91," New York Times, April 22, 2010. The permanent John F. Kennedy Eternal Flame grave site was consecrated and opened to the public on March 15, 1967.
Original grave site Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas. Dignitaries from 92 countries attended his state funeral on November 25.
Initial press reports indicated that Kennedy would be buried at Holyhood Cemetery in Brookline, Massachusetts, where his son Patrick Bouvier Kennedy (who had died on August 9, 1963, two days after his premature birth) was buried.Raymond, "President's Body Will Lie In State," New York Times, November 23, 1963. But the site for Kennedy's grave was quickly changed to the hillside just below Arlington House in Arlington National Cemetery; some months earlier Kennedy had admired the location's peaceful atmosphere while visiting it with his friend, architect John Carl Warnecke.Hamblin, "Mrs. Kennedy's Decisions Shaped All the Solemn Pageantry," Life, December 6, 1963.Robertson, "Thousands Expected to Pay Respects at Grave," New York Times, November 22, 1964.Moeller and Weeks, AIA Guide to the Architecture of Washington, D.C., 2006, p. 334.Von Eckardt, "Kennedy Monument Classic in Simplicity," Washington Post, November 17, 1964.
The initial suggestion to bury Kennedy at Arlington appears to have been made by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara.Johnston, The Truth About Patriotism, 2007, p. 169. First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy agreed to the change. Although Kennedy's sisters and many of his longtime associates from Massachusetts were opposed to burial at Arlington, his brother, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy visited the site with McNamara on Saturday, November 23, and concluded that Jacqueline Kennedy's wishes should be honored.
On Sunday, November 24, 1963, Jacqueline Kennedy requested an eternal flame for Kennedy's grave.Matthews, Kennedy & Nixon: The Rivalry That Shaped Postwar America, 1997, pp. 242–43.Bugliosi, Four Days in November: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, 2007, pp. 502–03. According to several published accounts, she drew inspiration from a number of sources. One was the eternal flame at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, which she and Kennedy had seen during a visit to France in 1961.Gormley and Henderson, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis: Friend of the Arts, 2002, pp. 142–43. She also took inspiration from the novel The Candle in the Wind (the fourth book from the collection The Once and Future King by T. H. White), which was part of the inspiration for the 1960 stage musical Camelot (the cast recording was a favorite of the Kennedys).Pierson, Camelot and the Cultural Revolution: How the Assassination of John F. Kennedy Shattered American Liberalism, 2007, p. 197.Matthews, Kennedy & Nixon: The Rivalry that Shaped Postwar America, 1997, pp. 242–42. Her brother-in-law, Sargent Shriver, counseled against an eternal flame, worried that it might appear ostentatious or that it would compete with other such memorials at Arlington National Cemetery; but she remained adamant.
Kennedy's funeral was set for Monday, November 25, which left very little time to manufacture and install an eternal flame. Overnight, Colonel Clayton B. Lyle and a United States Army Corps of Engineers team built the eternal flame: A propane gas-fueled tiki torch was procured from the Washington Gas and Light Company, tested, and slightly modified for emplacement.Stockland, The Assassination of John F. Kennedy, 2008, p. 81; "'Eternal Flame' at Arlington Will Be only Temporary Setup," New York Times, November 26, 1963; "'Eternal' Flame to Burn Over Grave of Kennedy," Washington Post, November 26, 1963; Wilson, Engineer Memoirs: Lieutenant General Walter K. Wilson, Jr., May 1984, pp. 194–96.Raymond, "Arlington Assigns Plot of Three Acres To Kennedy Family," New York Times, December 6, 1963.Pearson, "LBJ A Chair-Mover, Not A Chair-Warmer," Nevada Daily Mail, March 25, 1964.Smith, Grace and Power: The Private World of the Kennedy White House, 2006, p. 511. The Corps also installed a gas line to a propane tank away to feed the torch. A mound of evergreens was placed around the base of the flame to cover the tubing and torch mechanism, and the head of the grave dug in front of the flame.
The grave was set in a plot of grass roughly on each side."Fence Installed Near Grave," United Press International, November 26, 1963. The site was about halfway up the hill on which Arlington House stands.Wainwright, "A Visit to the Grave," Life, February 14, 1964, p. 15. The grave was placed so that it had a view of the Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument, and was aligned with them. Jacqueline Kennedy lit a taper from a candle held by a nearby soldier, and then brought the eternal flame to life at the end of the burial service.Bzdek, The Kennedy Legacy: Jack, Bobby and Ted and a Family Dream Fulfilled, 2009, p. 111. Kennedy's brothers, Robert and Ted, symbolically lit the flame after her.Hilty, Robert Kennedy: Brother Protector, 2000, p. 484.
On the evening of November 26, the site was surrounded by a white picket fence. The fencing covered an expanded area long by wide. The enlarged site was due to Jacqueline Kennedy's desire to have her deceased children, Patrick and Arabella (a stillborn daughter born in 1956), reinterred next to their father. She had read that in 1865, President Abraham Lincoln had been buried next to his deceased son, Willie, and she recalled Kennedy's desire to be buried with his family.Pottker, Janet and Jackie: The Story of a Mother and Her Daughter, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, 2001, pp. 229–31. A small white cross was placed at the head of Arabella's grave, and a small white headstone placed at the head of Patrick's.
During the funeral, flowers were laid on the hillside above the grave site. After the erection of the fence, flowers were placed inside the enclosure, leaning against the uphill side of the fence. A canvas-covered circular wooden walkway was built from Sheridan Drive to the grave site to give members of the public access to the grave.
Development of a permanent grave site
John Carl Warnecke, a friend of the Kennedys, visited the grave with Jacqueline Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy on November 28, to discuss themes and plans for a permanent memorial. The following day, Warnecke was chosen by now former-first lady to design Kennedy's tomb.Clopton, "Mrs. Kennedy to Discuss Tomb," Washington Post, November 30, 1963."Mrs. Kennedy Chooses an Architect to Design Husband's Tomb," New York Times, November 30, 1963. Warnecke immediately concluded that the permanent grave must be simple and incorporate the eternal flame. A few days later, Warnecke agreed that, although it was not required, he would submit the design for the permanent Kennedy grave site to the U.S. Commission on Fine Arts.
Initially, there was some concern that an eternal flame might not be approved by the cemetery. The Army Corps of Engineers was studying the installation of a permanent flame just a week after Kennedy's burial."Flame at Kennedy Grave Studied by Army Engineers," New York Times, November 29, 1963. But the Army was also considering removing the flame, as no such memorials were permitted in Arlington National Cemetery."Army Tacitly Approves Eternal Flame at Grave," New York Times, December 4, 1963. On December 3, 1963, the Army concluded that the Kennedy plot was not part of the official burial section of Arlington National Cemetery, and agreed to continue to allow an eternal flame.
The U.S. government formally set aside a site surrounding Kennedy's grave on December 5, 1963. The grave design process was placed under tight secrecy."Artists At Odds On Kennedy Job," New York Times, October 7, 1964."Kennedy Tomb Design to Be Revealed in Nov.," Washington Post, October 10, 1964.Robertson, "Tomb for Kennedy Is of Simple Design," New York Times, November 14, 1964. An extensive research project was conducted in which hundreds of famous tombs (such as the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus and Grant's Tomb) as well as all existing presidential burial sites were documented and images of them collected.Von Eckardt, "JFK Grave Design Combines Past, Present," Washington Post, November 22, 1964. Warnecke discussed design concepts with more than 40 architects, sculptors, painters, landscape architects, stonemasons, calligraphers, and liturgical experts—including the sculptor Isamu Noguchi, architectural model maker Theodore Conrad, and the U.S. Commission on Fine Arts. Noguchi counseled Warnecke to add a large sculptural cross to the site and to eliminate the eternal flame (which he felt was kitschy). Warnecke consulted with Jacqueline Kennedy about the design of the grave many times over the following year. Hundreds of architectural drawings and models were produced to explore design ideas. On April 6, 1964, Warnecke sent a memorandum to her in which he outlined his desire to retain the eternal flame as the centerpiece of the burial site and to keep the site's design as simple as possible. In the course of the research and conceptualization effort, Warnecke considered the appropriateness of structures or memorials at the site (such as crosses, shafts, pavilions, etc.), the history of Arlington National Cemetery, the vista, and how to handle ceremonies at the site. By August 1964, Warnecke and his assistants had written a 76-page research report which concluded that the grave site was not a memorial nor monument, but a grave. "This particular hillside, this flame, this man and this point in history must be synthesized in one statement that has distinctive character of its own. We must avoid adding elements that in later decades might become superficial and detract from the deeds of the man," Warnecke wrote This conclusion drove the final design. The walkways and elliptical overlook were conceptualized very early in the design process. Landscape architects Hideo Sasaki and Lawrence Halprin helped design the approaches and setting, but not the grave site. For some time in the spring and summer of 1964, the design process appeared to slow as Warnecke and his associates struggled to design the grave site. But in the summer of 1964 Sargent Shriver, Kennedy's brother-in-law, forcefully told Warnecke that "There must be something there when we get there." This spurred the design efforts forward. In the late summer and early fall, Warnecke considered massive ledger stone, a sarcophagus, a sunken tomb, a raised tomb, and sculpture to mark the graves. Very late in the design process, two abstract sculptures were designed but ultimately rejected.